Stephen A. Dowell's Blog

Category Archives: Travels

Post navigation

Being from Muncie, once labeled “Little Chicago” for the mobsters that would hang out there in the 1920s and 1830s due to it’s proximity to the “City of Big Shoulders” yet also because of its distance from it, I would visit the “Windy City” from time to time during the warmer months. It wasn’t until 1988, long after moving to Texas, that I experienced the winter months there.

Houston, Texas, is the 4th largest city in the United States and THE largest city in the south. My first encounter was in 1973 when Mom, Dad and I visited there as Dad interviewed for a Medical position. We spent several days at a hotel near the Medical Center, foreshadowing events fifteen years later.

This song was played frequently on the Miami Smooth Jazz radio station that I often listened to on assignment there in 1994. When I was flying home to Dallas one weekend toward the end of the project, the station’s DJ was sitting next to me on the plane with her husband en-route to Las Vegas for a few days of vacation. It was Friday the 13th and sure enough we all had a scare on approach to DFW. It turns out that we flew right through seven twisters (unknown to us at the time) that did a great deal of damage to the suburb of Lancaster. The pilot told me after landing that it was the worst turmoil he’d ever experienced.

The next week back in Miami, I flipped on the radio to hear the DJ describing her enjoyable and relaxing getaway but that she was glad to be back at work.